Albanians Find Greek Welcome Mat Is Gone

Immigration Ills Batter Relationship

VOULA, Greece — Spyros hobbles along a street in this seaside Athens suburb, a rubber beach sandal on his right foot and blood trickling from the toes of his bare left foot.

"I saw the police so I started running," says the 26-year-old Albanian. "That's how I hurt my foot."

Spyros and perhaps more than 100,000 other Albanians living illegally in Greece were running from the police last week, or went into hiding after the government announced it was expelling all illegal Albanian migrants.

By the weekend, after more than 10,000 Albanians had been rounded up and bused back to their homeland, Greek authorities admitted the announcement had been a shot across the bow rather than the drastic measure it appeared to be. They said they had begun a "phase of de-escalation" of the crisis with their neighbor and the expulsions would tail off.

But the announcement came in a week in which the gates to immigrants began to clang shut across Europe.

Germany sent troops to its eastern frontiers to stem a tide of would-be immigrants, and Germany's eastern neighbors, afraid they would be stuck with the border crossers that Germany rejected, announced curbs of their own.

France also said it was taking measures to control the flow of immigration, mainly from the Arab world and black Africa. Greece, with a population of 10 million, has an estimated half-million illegal immigrants on its hands.

Much of the tide of immigration besetting Europe is a result of the collapse of communism and the quest of newly freed people for a better life. Another huge wave has been churned up by the conflict in former Yugoslavia, which has produced 3 million refugees.

Greece and Albania had little choice but to de-escalate their feud, for each needs the other. Albanian immigrants generally perform menial jobs that Greeks themselves refuse to do, and Albania, Europe's poorest and most backward nation, desperately needs the money the workers send home.

Greek authorities say all of southern Albania exists almost entirely on Greek money.

In practical terms, there was no way to make the expulsions stick. The lengthy Greek-Albanian frontier, much of it mountainous, is so porous that those who are expelled simply make their way back to Greece in a matter of days.

Aleko, 21, one of Spyros' companions, said he had been expelled 20 times in the last two years. Spryos has made 12 roundtrips, courtesy of the police, and said he once was held for 25 days in a Patras jail, where he was beaten and given little food.

Kastriot Robo, first secretary of the Albanian Embassy, said police have been confiscating money from Albanians they expell and saying they can reclaim it when they are able to enter the country legally.

"They worked hard for two years, and now they leave with nothing," he said. "It doesn't help the climate of friendship." He said many Albanians were leaving voluntarily because they feared loss of their savings if arrested.

Spyros, an Albanian of Greek descent, and three of his friends have a desperate life in Greece in the best of circumstances. They sleep on construction sites at night and have to bathe in the sea.

Every morning, they go to the market square in Voula, where construction foremen and other potential employers drive up and offer them jobs at much less than Greek workers get. Sometimes, Spyros said, the employers refuse to pay them at the end of the day.

Dimitri, another Albanian, said four friends of his worked on a construction site in the posh Athens suburb of Kifissia and were given only half the money owed them. He said the foreman then denounced them to the police and they were deported.

Spyros said he knew of 20 Albanians in Voula who were deported in the last two days.

"We are all afraid," he said. "We don't have passports. But what else can we do? We are very poor in Albania. People can't afford to buy bread. We have been left far behind the rest of Europe."

Evangelia Bartholomeou, who operates a snack bar in a Voula park, said the Albanians often gamble and then fight among themselves. Recently, she said, one Albanian asked her to hold 100,000 drachmae ($400) for him because he was afraid his friends would steal it.

Greek authorities say Albanians account for 20 percent of prisoners in Greek jails, most for theft.

"We feel sorry for them, but I think they should all be sent home," Bartholomeou said. "It would be better if Greece gave Albania aid money so they could develop their own country."

Greece and Albania have a long history of political differences. At the end of World War II, a group of Albanians known as Cams (pronounced Chams) living in northern Greece were expelled to Albania after they were accused of having collaborated with the German and Italian occupiers of Greece. The Albanian government is still trying to win compensation for confiscated Cams property.

After the war, Albania fell under the most rigidly Stalinist Communist dictatorship in Europe and was sealed off from the outside world until 1990, when the regime toppled.